What is it with the bee and me?
Watchful eyes at the Magnolia tree
Take in the bloom full from trunk
To branch and on to circled crown.
Ah, but see the bee and all the other
Drinking pals, as they bounce, bumble
and buzz through the afternoon? I yearn
To drowse where quiet rumble of tiny insects
Enfolds me in the rhythm of this warm cocoon.
. . .with apology to Emily Dickinson, the master, who never stretched a rhyme.
1) Once I thought we should be buried
together, our history and all, she thought
that gross, went her parochial way,
the loss like quick sand that sticks
2) Coffee at Tates Creek Plaza
with questions that stir themselves
into the old brew, the last time
done with deceit’s double shot
3) Don’t give anything away
is how we flew first class and time
and time again landed at the end
4 It’s no wait with this go round
no push no pull, no come no go,
unhappiness a bitter tea poured out
Back in high school, I hung out with guys who just liked to drive around town at night, late at night
We didn’t get into trouble, none at all–because we didn’t actually do anything
We just entertained ourselves by wasting time, totally wasting time
Unless there is some positive value to driving around aimlessly and coming up with bad jokes, really bad ones.
One summer, during one of these totally unproductive excursions,
I offered a diabolical suggestion:
Let’s pick a target–an unsuspecting victim–and, at a very late hour, pour ice all over this person’s lawn
What was so diabolical was that the ice would melt by the time our victim would wake up
The evidence would have disappeared without a trace, completely undetectable.
I’m glad we never did that
It would have weighed on my conscience for decades, maybe my whole life
But now I’m wondering, Has anyone ever done that to me?
I resist the news cycle
droning from the living room
take a book of Rilke to the patio
along with bug spray
to murder mosquitos.
The overgrown yard
cushions my bare feet
as I prune the tomatoes,
pat their leaves, tie them
to the stake. I breathe,
sit under the umbrella,
meditate until dusk,
don’t reach for the hoe
when the chipmunk darts
under the table. His claws
skim over my feet.
I want
more than this
transitory glimmer
of a life
here.
Now.
I want–
I Am–
more than this
moment
of recollection
and speculation
on this life
here.
Now.
I Am
going to be
more than what
you
or anyone else
expect.
Here. Now.
I Am
making it
Mine.
Long, lonesome day
D A7
The lady walks away.
D
She holds her head down toward the ground.
A7
To the lady I say:
D
Your life is passing away…
A7
Lift up your eyes…
D
Take the clouds from the sky.
D A7
The lady stops walking…
D
Turns to me to speaks her mind:
A7
To a lady don’t say
D
her life is passing away.
A7
Lift not her spirit
D
with a word-she won’t hear it.
A7
The lady would walk away,
D
but I was young and I was wild.
A7
Oh, lady, hear me.
D
Your heart just wants to be.
A7
There’s no wisdom or rhyme
D
in your bottle of wine.
D A7
The lady turns again
D
with a look and a frown.
A7
I’m just what you see-
D
grown hollow like a tree,
A7
if you follow me you’ll lose me.
D
I’m too lonesome if I’m not free.
D A7
So to this lady don’t’ say:
D
her life is passing away.
A7
You can’t take me home
D
when my heart wants to roam.
A7 D
Just get out of my way.
A7
You leave me alone!
D A7
To the lady I say
D
have yourself a hell of a day.
Have yourself a hell
A7
of a long
D
lonesome day.
Like a secret I can’t keep
but can’t set free,
obtuse shadow following
or dragging me.
Blood fatigue.
Like all wars
ultimately pointless
and wasteful.
two young ones hold
hands and laugh
as I remember
that we are
old now and
we are them
I feel bad about my face–
how it’s grown old on me–
betraying, without permission
my age.
And it’s obvious for all to see–
can’t hide it
unless I adopt a burka.
And then I try to remember
it doesn’t matter where you are
walking the labyrinth.
Each place is equally real
and valid,
one spot not superior
to another.
Fully inhabit this space
without regret, longing.
This morning at the summer solstice, countdown toward winter already begun,
I remember when you rowed the dinghy downstream on the Wye to plant a stake
in the reeds where we saw the sun rise. Last December’s marker stood a hand’s
breadth or two upstream where the muskrats nest and I sketched it from the dock.
Now I ask myself if we were such keen partakers, back then in our prime, of facts,
observation, wonder, beauty for its own sake, that we forgot all about tyrant time?
Or were we precocious prophets, refusing to let a single quarter segment of the year
— for we noted equinoctial moments, both spring and fall – slip through our fingers?
